Hack 'n Slash Online - multiplayer dungeon crawler

[The_Piper]

Hack 'n Slash Online is a multiplayer dungeon crawler in a semi dynamic world.

It is a browser game, so no need to download and install anything.

Your browser must support Java applets.

http://the-green-leaf.de/progue_applet.html


The game is now open for a technical test, to see how it works, when more than 2-3 players are active at the same time.

The Game
========
Right now you can go exploring, kill creatures (and players on a PK map), get loot, make money and such.

The dynamic part of the world are the dungeons.
When a dungeon is cleared, all monsters inside are dead OR the boss monster of that dungeon is killed, all players inside the dungeon will be teleported out to the start map and the dungeon will be generated again with different levels, different monsters.

The static part of the world are some outside maps, where creatures respawn, when they get killed, so you can train there and collect keys, you will need them inside the dungeons to pass doors.

Testing
=======
If you find any bugs or want to post a comment or make a suggestion, post in the games forum, which is here: http://hackslashonline.forumer.com/index.php

[Habbakuk]

Tried it out just now. A little simplistic and isn't fun for that long, but I guess that's what most online games are for, just to kill a bit of time. Replica Watches Swiss Cartier Replica Watches Replica Watch Swiss Rolex Replica Watches Swiss Replica Watches

[rachoac]

First of all, +++ on using Java. Though it feels like the visual basic of game programming languages, I have found it to be a pretty good idiom in which to express my ideas (see http://www.janthus.com/game.jnlp).

Some feedback:
- delay in movement after click is distracting
- please support arrow key or wasd
- who's online would be appreciated
- music would help with the immersion

I'll explore a little more tonight, but i wanted to congratulate you on getting this far. Creating a multiplayer game is no easy task! Please check out my project too, and tell me what you think.

[corremn]

Too slow for me, 5+ seconds per turn, unsure if the game got my turn so I click again, a few seconds later I get the message "too many clicks per second". If the game actually updated at 1 second then it would be playable for me.

Looks interesting though but for now is completly unplayable for me

[The_Piper]

Thanks for your reports, i am happy to get some feedback at all 

The speed, yes, a game with a response time of 5 minutes is unplayable, i see here, from my desktop comp and the server running on the vServer, response times between 0,5-1,5 seconds, so *MAYBE* it might a problem with your ISP. The vServer is hosted in germany, maybe it is a problem with internet routing.

Moving with keys: wasd might cause a bigger problem, you will have trouble to type and chat. But i'll try to add arrow keys, thats a good idea.

There is an #online text command, which lists the players online.

Music: Much, much later. I am the only person who is working on the server and the java applet

Right now i just want to get the game stable and playable and create the beginning of a playable world. And solve some problems like the "too many clicks per second" stuff (this was implemented from trying to stop  the java mousehandler to hang up after too many clicks..)

Thanks again for your replies!

[corremn]

Well yeah I am in Australia, we are not know for our super fast internet. Speed test shows me at around 7-8 Mbps but my up is very slow indeed (WiMAX). Routing may be an issue along with my slow up speed, and a non-optimised server

Out of interest I just tested my work speed -  65 down and 25 up

[Pueo]

Some things I noticed:

WASD or arrow keys would be much appreciated
Combat shouldn't just run until you win (or lose)
There is a delay between clicks and moves

Not big things, so far so good, and congratulations on the successful beta

[The_Piper]

Thanks for your comments

WASD or arrow keys would be much appreciated

Since you guys mention to use the arrow keys, i'm going to implement that in the future.
I thought, clicking would be easier, but using the arrow keys to move/attack/harvest/open doors/click on NPC's shouldnt be a big problem.

Combat shouldn't just run until you win (or lose)

How else should combat be? You can flee from combat by a small chance, should monsters try to flee too, when their health is too low or something like that?
And there is/will be magic in game, you can cast spells during combat to protect/heal yourself or  to cause damage to your enemy.

There is a delay between clicks and moves

How bad is the delay for you?
(There will always be a delay, depending on your internet connection)
Anyways, i hope, i fixed it a little bit, the server was compiled with debugging option to
find a server hangup earlier. I changed that now, now its compiled with optimizer.

Not big things, so far so good, and congratulations on the successful beta

Thank you!

[Pueo]

Hm..
I think combat should be like NetHack, Brogue, DoomRL, or one of those games. Each turn you choose to attack, move, or do some other action, but if you run, the monster will probably follow you.  It's a little advanced at the stage you're at, but that's just my thought.

The delay is between 1 second and 1.5 seconds.  I'll try it again when I have time (since you changed it to the optimizer)

[The_Piper]

I think combat should be like NetHack, Brogue, DoomRL, or one of those games. Each turn you choose to attack, move, or do some other action, but if you run, the monster will probably follow you.  It's a little advanced at the stage you're at, but that's just my thought.

Well, you can flee right now, if you want. Just try to walk away, theres a small chance, that you can escape. Ok, monsters that follow you and hunt you means more AI for the monsters, right now they are quite dumb, they check, if a player is close to them and then there is a chance, that they attack.

Making them more intelligent is a future plan, like you can tame them, they follow you as a pet and fight for you.

Or they really start to hunt players

The delay is between 1 second and 1.5 seconds.  I'll try it again when I have time (since you changed it to the optimizer)

I changed a little bit more today, did some profiling with OProfile of the server and found 2 really nasty wastes of performance and fixed that.

So, for me, there is a performance increase right now like 50-75%. You can check that with the #ping command in game, that really shows the milliseconds a message takes to be sent from the applet to the game server and back.

And since the game server itself is busy with a lot of other things, like managing the world of the game, moving monsters and NPC's and such, the #ping might vary, depending on how fast the game server can reply.

I get right now a #ping between 7 and 500 milliseconds, which shouldnt be not that bad to play.

On the other hand, the server, where the game server runs on, is a virtual server, which might cause some performance problems itself.

Well, at least, its quite cheap

[Leaf]

I'm doing my multiplayer combat sort of MUD-like.

When exploring, you can move around as fast as you want and turns are not tracked.

Then when something attacks you or you attack something, the combat timer kicks in.  When in combat mode, you can only take one action per turn.

If you just stand there and don't take an action, the game performs a DIKU-like auto-attack for you when your turn timer ticks over.  If you choose to take an action like moving, casting a spell, using a special attack, etc, it goes into your action queue and goes off in place of your auto-attack.  To flee, you take a flee action, which kicks you out of combat mode on your turn and lets you try to spam away (if you can get away before getting hit by something again, which will throw you back into combat mode).

It's not ideal (and indeed, I prefer a real turn-based system in general), but I don't think a strict turn-based system would work well in a multiplayer game.

Java is a good choice of languages, and is quite popular with the enterprise server crowd.  These days, when I go back to a non-GCed language (or even worse, a non OO one), I wonder how the heck I hacked so much C back in the day without going nuts. XD

[corremn]

Kind of sounds like the way Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan works.  When you walk into a room with monsters in it it kicks to combat mode, other than that you are free to wander and explore aimlessly. 

[The_Piper]

Another performance increase, i changed today the way, how the game generates random numbers, the most called function in game, and the performance increased, at least for me, by like 50%.

Any comments about the new server and it's performance are welcome

[The_Piper]

First release in 2012 with another performance optimization.

The "make" window is now working, you can now make a few items, like fire essences, leather strings, healing potions or fill water into an empty bottle.

More monsters implemented, you can see now all available monsters (in game and coming later) at the zoo. Where that is, is your job to find out

More harvestable stuff in game, like ores and gems, which will be used later to make stuff.

And if you're totally bored, you can visit the theatre and watch a group of actors performing Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Where that is? Go exploring, the hint is, on that entrance door is a mask painted.

Plus some very nasty bugfixes..

Any comments are welcome!

http://the-green-leaf.de/progue_applet.html

[rachoac]

Hey, having problems logging in --- after logging in with username/password, I am greeted with a blank (black) screen...